1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of refrigerator shelving systems and, more specifically, to a refrigerator rail system for removably supporting side-sliding refrigerator shelves.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Many different types of shelving systems have been provided for refrigerator compartments. For example, it is common to provide vertically adjustable storage units and/or shelves in refrigerator cabinets in order to increase the versatility of storing a wide range of food items. To this end, many fresh food compartments have elongated, vertically extending and laterally spaced rails or tracks mounted on rear walls thereof, with the rails enabling storage units to be supported in selected vertically adjustable positions in a cantilevered manner. Typical rails of this type include a plurality of spaced slots into which storage unit hooks can be inserted to support the units in a cantilevered fashion. In some instances, storage units lack the requisite hooks such that adapters, which can themselves hook into the rails, are used to support the storage units. One example of this type of storage unit can be seen in U.S. Application Publication No. 2003/0020387 which discloses half-width shelves supported in a cantilevered fashion on a vertically adjustable hooked bracket assembly. Half-width shelves of this type can be selectively positioned in either a side-by-side manner or vertically spaced from one another, thereby permitting a consumer to customize the inside of a refrigerator cabinet and allow enhanced space utilization and access to stored food items.
Of course, in cases where the typical rail and hook configuration is not utilized, other configurations would need to be provided to produce an easily customized shelving configuration for a refrigerator cabinet. As with all rail systems for shelving units, the materials used and the design of the individual pieces of the system can greatly affect the ease of assembly and cost of production. Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a simple and economical adjustable rail system that allows shelves to be slid to a desired horizontal position or adjusted vertically for easy customization of the inside of a refrigerator compartment.